


But This Is My Home Now

by sophinisba



Category: The Visitor (2007 Movie)
Genre: 5 Things, 5000-10000 Words, Character of Color, F/M, Family, Home, Immigration & Emigration, Muslim Character, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 19:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Mouna Khalil was right where she wanted to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But This Is My Home Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zelda Ophelia (ZeldaOphelia)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeldaOphelia/gifts).



#### 1\. Damascus, November, 2006

"Home, sweet home," Rafik said, in English, as he opened the door to the apartment. Switching to Arabic he added, "Must look small compared to what you had in America, but there's always room for my sister."

And it would have looked small, if Mouna were comparing it to the house in Rochester or even to Walter's apartment in New York, but she wasn't. She was thinking about the past, when this apartment had been new – how big and luxurious it had seemed back then.

"Oh, I remember this place," she exclaimed. She hadn't let herself miss it in a long time, but she let the memories come back now. The move, first of all, and finally having a real place in a real neighborhood in the capital. Because their mother had a job, and Mouna was a university student, and Rafik would be soon. They were moving up in the world. And even if Rafik never moved any higher, this was a good place to be in Damascus. She remembered bringing Ahmad home to meet her mother, how he'd charmed her not by complimenting her cooking or her decorating but by asking her opinion on Syria's presence in Lebanon. She remembered how they used to come back here, even after they were married, how they'd stay up with Rafik and Amal, eating, smoking, talking – arguing more often than not. It happened less after Tarek was born, and then Amal's babies. They became responsible and kept reasonable hours. Still, no one could argue politics like Rafik and Ahmad.

"Girls," Mouna said to the two tall young women who came to greet her, "you probably don't even remember me."

"Hello, Auntie," they said in chorus. Mouna smiled at them and remembered the little girls with easy smiles and pigtails she'd once known.

"Of course I remember you," said Roua, hugging her warmly. "I'm so happy you're home at last." She must be twenty now, probably a student at the university. "Did you have a good flight?"

"Yes," said Mouna, "several. It was fine, just very long."

Nademah hugged her too. She would be eighteen or nineteen, Mouna wasn't sure. "You must be exhausted. And, well, I'll let you get some rest." She was putting on a jacket and a headscarf as she spoke. "It's so good to see you. I wanted to stay long enough to say hello, but I should go now."

"But why? Go where?"

"Nademah's going to stay at her friend's apartment for a few days," said Amal, and then Mouna understood. They weren't talking about the small size of the apartment because they worried about her. It was because by staying with them she was squeezing her family out of their own home.

"It's not a big deal," said Nademah, "I do it all the time. I just shouldn't be out too late."

Mouna would share a room with Roua, sleeping in Nademah's bed, and Tarek would stay in the living room, as he had the past two nights. Mouna guessed Nademah was telling the truth, that it really wasn't a big deal. They'd done things like this all the time in the old days. You made people fit where you could. Still, it couldn't last for very long, not now. Rafik would always be family, but this wasn't her home anymore.

She thanked Nademah and kissed her goodbye, and not long after that she said goodnight to Rafik and Amal, but she stayed with Tarek while the others went to their rooms, helped him lay out the sheets and adjust the cushions on the sofa. It was the first time they'd been alone together in over three years. She noticed his hands fidgeting (the way they always had, since he was a ten-year-old boy with a cheap aluminum derbakeh between his legs) and asked if he'd gone looking for a new drum.

"A new drum," he scoffed. "Like they're all the same. Like I can just go down to the Souk al Hamidiyeh and find Senegal's best. Might as well tell me to look for a new girlfriend while I'm there."

"Tarek!" she snapped, and then covered her mouth. The walls were thin and the others would be trying to sleep.

Tarek looked down at his hands, clasped together and still. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "It's just hard, I…We never got a chance to say goodbye."

"I know," said Mouna, and she covered his hands in her own. She thought of saying goodbye to Walter at the airport yesterday. Then she thought of the day the police came for Ahmad. _Help_, she'd screamed then. _Please don't do this._ But they hadn't said goodbye then either.

"It's not fair," she said. "I know how much it hurts. You know I do."

Tarek nodded and cleared his throat. He wasn't really looking at her. "I'm thinking about trying to go to Beirut," he said roughly. "Nademah's boyfriend works there, and he comes home on weekends. There's more going on there. More jobs, more music, art…"

"You can't do that. Not after all this. I don't want us to be apart anymore."

"There's no life for me here. There wasn't before we left, that was –"

"That wasn't the reason we left."

"That was part of it. There wasn't a future here, for any of us."

"Everyone swears it's different now."

"All right, Mom, easier for journalists, maybe. But I'm not a journalist. Even people with university degrees can't get jobs here, and I speak Arabic like a kid, and –"

"And you speak English and French, and you're young, and talented, and intelligent," Mouna said firmly, squeezing his hand. "You're your father's son, and mine, and your family will always be proud of you."

Tarek nodded, but he was conciliatory, obedient, not believing and not proud. He was broken and broken-hearted, and Mouna didn't have the first idea of how to fix him. She couldn't bring him a crowd to listen to and appreciate his music any more than she could bring him Zainab. She couldn't bring back the way he used to smile at her.

But at least she could convince him to kiss her goodnight. She could tell him she loved him and see his face when he said the same words back. It was more than she'd had in a very long time.

In the morning Roua showed Mouna the way to an Internet café two blocks from the apartment. It was small, with just five computer terminals, three of them occupied by boys Roua's age, and one of them apparently out of service. "You first," Roua said, "you probably have messages waiting."

"No," said Mouna, "now I know where it is I can come back later. You go ahead."

Roua protested some more but Mouna just smiled at her and said she was going for a walk.

Damascus had changed in nine years, that was no surprise. Mouna had known this neighborhood well once, though in the old days this spot had had a beauty salon, not an Internet café. She recognized a few of the businesses but none of the people on the street. Still, the figures were familiar – the bent over old woman sweeping her bit of sidewalk, the teenage boys leaning in doorways, the young mother carrying her child.

Mouna took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and it was like stepping back in time, because Damascus still smelled like coffee and cardamom, people and cars and ancient stone buildings. And even in November, somehow, the faint scent of rose and jasmine was there, reminding her what it felt like to be young, in love with a city, and in love with a man.

Remembering Ahmad made her chest ache, as it always did, but it wasn't like the last time she'd been in Damascus, when the pressure was so much she could barely breathe. She couldn't tell whether everyone else was breathing easier these days or if it was just her. Just knowing that Hafez was dead made her feel freer, even though she guessed the police and the prosecutors and the prison guards who'd been responsible for her husband's death had held on to their jobs through the change in government.

Reluctantly she returned to the low ceilings and fluorescent lighting of the Internet café, and Roua showed her how to enter the password and keep track of her time. "There are some sites you shouldn't try to access," Roua said in a low voice. "You don't use Hotmail, do you?"

"No, Yahoo."

"That should be fine. Are you just checking your e-mail?"

Mouna nodded.

"And you can find your way back to the apartment all right?"

"Of course."

Roua kissed her goodbye and Mouna faced the computer. She'd never liked e-mail very much. She'd had to get an account at work, and these days everyone from the store clerk to the secretary at the mosque wanted to know your address, so she would give it out, and once every few days she would fish out one or two personal messages amongst the advertisements. But she'd always insisted her son call her on the telephone, and she'd been the one to call her brother once a month.

One of the things she'd liked about Walter was that he was the same way – old-fashioned. No computer in the apartment in New York. He carried a cell phone but, unlike Tarek, he always looked a bit confused when he actually had to use it.

And yet, this was what she had from him now: a few typewritten lines saying he hoped she and Tarek were well, that she'd had a good flight. That seemed to be the safest topic anyone could think of, whether she'd had a good flight.

Sincerely,  
Walter

Mouna wrote back that the trip had been long but uneventful, that she and Tarek were once again staying in someone else's apartment, and she hoped someday soon they could get back on their own feet and stop living off charity. Then she realized that that wouldn't sound right, if she couldn't smile while she said it, so she deleted the last few lines. The flight had been fine. It was good to see her brother and her sister-in-law and her nieces again, and of course Tarek. They were still so grateful for Walter's help, she wrote. She hoped they would remain friends, and that someday she'd be able to return his hospitality.

"I miss you," she wrote, and then deleted it.

Your friend,  
Mouna

* * *

#### 2\. Damascus, August, 1981

He carried her across the threshold of the building. He said he'd do it again at the threshold of the apartment, but he didn't have the strength to take her up the two flights of stairs in between.

Mouna laughed, jumped out of his arms, and ran up the stairs with Ahmad chasing behind her. He had the key and she kissed him with her back to the door as he opened it, pushing in, so there was no carrying after all, because they were far too eager. They'd been on display for hours, listening to the imam, thanking the guests, dancing for the guests, dancing with the guests, eating and singing and letting people wish them a long life of love and happiness. She was blessed, she felt blessed, but she'd had enough of family and friends. And all she wanted now was to be alone with him, her husband, at last.

Luckily that was what he wanted too.

Mouna had been here before, climbed up and down the stairs a dozen times, helped choose the furniture and the curtains herself, but it hadn't been _hers_ until now. Turning around, trying to take it all in, she was surprised to notice a single pink rose in a vase on the table. She hadn't been the one to put it there.

"Another wedding gift?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"From me," said Ahmad. He pulled the flower from the vase and held it out to her. "Just me."

Ahmad couldn't afford the apartment himself, of course. It was a gift from his parents and carried with it the unspoken expectation that he, as their only son, would take care of them as they grew older, and watch out for his three sisters until they married. For this reason his family hoped he'd decide on an easier career than being a writer and journalist. It was respectable, yes, but it was precarious, especially if you were just starting out, or if you wanted to write about politics, or if you didn't think every decision Hafez al-Assad made was right.

"Couldn't you do advertising?" said his mother. "Or be a lawyer like your father, if you want to talk about politics. If you need to talk about the news, do it at the television station, where they'd pay real money. You're good looking enough," she added with a sly little smile.

Privately Mouna agreed, but she wouldn't try to tell Ahmad selling toothpaste on TV paid better than telling the truth in the newspaper. He knew that as well as everyone else.

"You've got to have standards though," he said. "You've got to have priorities."

Mouna's priority at the moment was getting his clothes off, but on the way to the bedroom she took the rose and thanked him.

She had her own goals in life too. One more year to finish her course at the university. Ahmad was already done with his and had started working. Mouna hoped she'd be able to find a job too, but most of all she wanted children. Two boys, or maybe two girls, no more than that, and this apartment would be enough – they'd never even have to move.

And unlike her, unlike her mother and Rafik and all the people she'd known as a child, her children would be Syrians growing up in Syria. They wouldn't be visitors, dependant on anyone's guilt, charity or tolerance. They'd be educated, proud, she thought. Ready to claim the world for their very own.

But that was all far away, and Ahmad was very marvelously close. Mouna claimed the Damascus rose as the precious gift it was, claimed this apartment as her home, and claimed Ahmad Khalil as her husband. His mouth tasted sweet like a promise.

* * *

#### 3\. Damascus, June, 2007

Mouna took a taxi to the airport, rather than go with Rafik or Tarek or try to borrow a car. It was better this way, she thought. She could let someone else worry about driving them around and give all her attention to her guest.

She'd never given Walter all her attention before. When she was getting to know him in New York, her mind had been on Tarek most of the time – trying to piece together what his life with Zainab in the city had been, and what his life in the prison was by then. She enjoyed Walter's company but he wasn't her world, not like Ahmad when they'd first been together. Was that because of the circumstances, she wondered, or because Mouna was older and wiser by then? Or was there something about Walter Vale that resisted being important to people?

_Unassuming_, that was the word. You _couldn't_ really give all your attention to Walter Vale.

It was the same way here, even though he stood out now, conspicuous in his looks and his confusion. He hugged her but only briefly and he said little, and Mouna found herself looking in any other direction, talking about anything but what she was feeling, in order to fill up the silence.

On the way back to the city they passed through Jaramana, and Mouna, who'd been cheerfully describing everything they saw up till then, wasn't prepared for the shame. Her mouth went dry and she looked at her lap, but Walter said nothing, and after a few moments Mouna distracted herself by paging through the guidebook he'd brought.

"We'll have to take a day and go to Bosra together. The Roman ruins are fascinating. And if you have time, you should go to Aleppo and then the coast…"

"I have time," said Walter.

"You don't need to get back to your job?"

"No. I retired."

"But you're too young."

"It's…early retirement. It's not what I'd planned, but it worked out. I was able to sell the house –"

"And the apartment?"

"I still have the apartment, for…"

"Like before, so you can travel, or live somewhere else, but you still have the apartment for when you need to go back?"

"Yes, and Zainab is staying there now, with her cousin."

"That's very generous of you," said Mouna.

Walter, characteristically, shrugged. "Well, it was…She would have been all right, but it's easier for her to keep working if she stays in Manhattan. And I've been in Connecticut, mostly."

"And now you're here."

"Now I'm here."

Walter was his usual polite, awkward self in Damascus. He ate heartily and praised the cooks everywhere he went, whether it was an elegant restaurant, a simple shawarma stand, or Rafik and Amal's home. He played music with Tarek and his friends and nodded at their praise. He drank the red wine that Mouna had bought in preparation for his visit, but slowly. He didn't seem to cling to the glass the way he had before.

When they went out sightseeing Mouna did most of the talking. Walter barely even asked questions, but he listened intently and looked wherever she pointed.

Mouna had never walked around Damascus with a foreigner before, and she found she liked it. It gave her a sense of ownership, teaching him her history, whether she was talking about the Romans or the Ottomans or the time when Tarek was a young boy and Ahmad was working.

She liked taking him to the Umayyad Mosque, and telling him stories of Saladin, his victories and his wisdom, his fairness.

In busy areas like this, and especially after, when they entered the Souk al Hamidiyeh, there were young men shouting in English and French at every foreigner they saw. Mouna liked standing with her friend and speaking in her own careful, correct English. She liked knowing that Walter would have a better view of her city than any of the Europeans and Japanese she saw snapping pictures, talking loudly as they got on and off their tour buses.

When they made it out of the covered souk and into the open air again the sun was baking hot. "We should have lunch here in the Old City," Mouna said, "and then go back to the hotel to rest. It's too hot to move around much in the afternoon." She had noticed he was sweating already.

At the restaurant Walter asked whether she had grown up in Damascus.

"Yes. Well, I didn't come to Damascus itself until I was a teenager. Rafik and I were born in Jaramana, that's not far from here…"

"Should we go visit?"

Mouna froze for a moment, and then smiled at him. "No," she said, "it's not a very nice place. I didn't mind it when I was growing up, because it was all I knew. But I haven't been there for a long time. We moved to the city when I was a student."

"Do your parents live here too?"

"No, my father died when I was just a girl, and my mother passed away while Tarek and I were in Michigan."

"I'm sorry," said Walter.

Mouna thanked him with a nod. "They had a hard life, but I think they were satisfied, my mother especially. She was happy with what Rafik and I did with our lives, and he took care of her until the end."

"She wasn't upset that you left Syria?"

"Well, yes, but only because she missed us. She and my father both came to Syria when they were children, but they lived in the camps most of their lives, and all their friends were other Palestinians. I don't think either of them really felt they belonged here. For my mother it was a place where her children could have a better life, and so was America. So she was happy for us."

Walter reached across the table to take Mouna's hand. "I'm glad you made it to America, you and Tarek. I'm glad I had the chance to meet you."

Mouna thought about everything that had led them to leave Syria. She thought of seven years of raising Tarek on her own, never knowing if they'd be coming for her next, but being afraid to leave, in case Ahmad was released and he needed her. She thought about how when he did come home he was so thin and nervous that Tarek was nervous around him, and even Mouna didn't know how to help him. She remembered the funeral and how they'd had to announce that it was natural causes, how they'd had to keep lying even then.

With all that and the events of the past year, she could not say she was glad she'd gone to America, even though she'd been happy there for a time, and even though she knew he wanted to hear it.

"Walter, what are you doing here?" she asked quietly. "This isn't your home. Do you think it ever will be?"

Walter just looked at her for a moment. She thought he might shrug, but he kept still. After a while he said, "I don't know. I don't want to be anywhere else."

"Not New York?"

"No, not New York, not Connecticut, not Illinois."

"Not Michigan."

Walter blew out a breath. "No, not Michigan."

Mouna had known women in Syrian and Lebanese and Pakistani women, who'd married without love, sometimes without even meeting the groom ahead of time, so that they could live in Michigan legally. She knew there were women in Syria who would chase after foreigners for the chance at a trip abroad, even without the security of marriage. She couldn't condemn them, but she couldn't quite imagine doing that herself.

Still, she'd been waiting for Walter's visit for six months. She hadn't talked about it much, and she'd never known what to _expect_, but a few times she'd let herself imagine a scene something like this, but that ended with Walter pulling out a ring.

That wasn't what he was doing, for now at least.

But maybe that was the good thing about Walter, she reflected. He didn't make promises that he couldn't keep. She'd kissed him only a few times since he arrived, and each time she thought, _This might be the last time. This might be the end._ Mouna didn't take anything for granted anymore, not family, not the future, not the ground beneath her feet.

She said, "I'm glad you came to Syria. I'm glad you're here now."

* * *

#### 4\. Jaramana (outskirts of Damascus), September, 1968

Mouna was running, but home was still far away. She needed to get away from the cars and the noise and the strangers' eyes. The crowded street smelled like sweat and garbage and burning fuel, and she was running with tears streaming down her face, but as soon as she was inside the camp she started to feel better. The passages between her neighbors' homes were deep, narrow and familiar. The sun was still high in the sky, but the walls gave her shade and shelter, and she slowed to a walk. Being this close was almost as good as being inside – she could almost feel her mother's arms wrapping around her – like a memory, or a ghost, only backwards. She could half-hear her mother's voice, and as she climbed the steps she really could smell her mother's cooking.

"What's this?" said her mother. She wiped Mouna's face with a cloth rather than pick her up and hug and kiss her, but it was still her mother's gentle touch, and it felt good to have her face clean, even though she was about ready to start crying again. "What happened to you?"

"Mama, I don't want to go to school anymore!" Mouna wailed.

"But how can you talk like that? Don't you know how lucky you are to have a chance to go to school?"

Mouna did know, that was the problem. Her own parents hadn't had the chance, so it was Mouna's job to do well in school so that she could get a good job someday, and they could move out of the camp. Rafik wasn't old enough to go to school yet, and lots of other children weren't allowed – sometimes because they were poor, or sometimes because they were refugees, or sometimes because they were girls. Mouna was all three, but she still got to go to school, and she was lucky to be here in Syria, where Palestinians could grow up to be anything they wanted to be. Her mother had told her that over and over, and so had her neighbors, and her teachers, except –

"The teacher said I'm stupid!"

"Why, because you couldn't answer a question?"

"I couldn't conjugate the verb _entendre_."

"Conjugate what, dear?"

"The French lesson! And if I can't learn French and English I can't ever go to university and I'll – and we'll –"

It was only then that her mother put her arms around her, and even though Mouna's eyes still burned, and even though she didn't know how she would ever go back and face her teachers again, nothing else seemed to matter then. "You'll be all right," her mother said, and Mouna had to believe it was true. Her mother never lied to her.

When Mouna had calmed down again she sat on her mother's lap and they went on talking.

"I _did_ know the conjugation," Mouna explained, "I studied it. Only when she called on me to recite in front of everyone I couldn't talk. I was too scared."

Her mother looked at her for a moment, and Mouna wondered if she was thinking about things that had made her scared when she was a girl. But she didn't usually talk about that, and she didn't now. Instead she said, "Well, that will be fine. I don't know any French, and neither does Leyla's mother. So before you go to school you'll recite your lessons for us. That way you'll practice speaking in front of someone else, and Miriam and I will get to learn too. Does that sound all right?"

"But what if the teacher still thinks I'm stupid?"

Mouna's mother shook her head. "She might say that, but she doesn't think it. They talk like that to make you work hard. You'd only be stupid if you really believed them, and you stopped going to school because of it. Do you understand?"

Mouna thought for a little while and said, "I think so…but do I have to go back _tomorrow_?"

"Yes," her mother said firmly, "by then you'll be ready." She smiled. "But first it's time for lunch. Go call your brother inside."

Mouna ran, but she didn't have far to go.

* * *

#### 5\. Rochester Hills, Michigan, December, 1999

Tarek's friend Adam dropped him off at home late in the afternoon. There were so many students going to school in Detroit that it barely mattered that he didn't have his own car. He'd been home almost every other weekend, so this past semester wasn't as bad as she'd feared, not a whole five months of separation at once. But the visits were short, and it always hurt seeing him go again, especially that last time, after Thanksgiving. It didn't seem fair for her to have to give him up again with the holidays already started.

It was Mouna's good fortune, she thought, that the holidays were all coming together this year. Ramadan had started two weeks ago and would go on through Christmas and New Year's, so they'd be able to spend most of it together. Though she didn't ask, she doubted Tarek had been fasting through his final exams. Though she didn't admit it, she hadn't been fasting every day either. But things would be different now that he was here.

The days were short in Michigan in December, and the sun set early, less than an hour after he came home. After the light was gone they each drank a glass of water and ate a few dates before he helped her get dinner ready.

"It's still all general requirements now," he said, chopping up the vegetables for the fattoush. Mouna was pinching the doughy corners of the sambousek, not wanting any of the meat filling to spill out. "Mostly pretty boring, but next semester I can take a music theory class and get started on the music major."

"But you're already playing music now, aren't you?"

"Of course!"

"Well, good! You'll have to let me know when I can come and see you play."

Remembering Ahmad's parents, Mouna always resisted telling Tarek he ought to study something more practical. What good was practicality anyway, when one didn't know what the future would bring? Mouna studied biochemistry in Damascus, and here she was, a file clerk in Michigan. Maybe Tarek's life would be like hers, and twenty years from now he'd be living on the other side of the world, in a life he never expected. In the meantime, he might as well enjoy himself.

Then again, it was hard to imagine Tarek not enjoying himself. He could barely contain his excitement when he talked about the band he'd been playing in. They'd finally found a decent bassist, he said, and once they got back to school in January things were really going to take off.

She knew he was looking forward to this more than his music theory class, and certainly more than calculus or biology or English composition. If things really went the way he wanted them to, he might not finish college at all. Tarek had never been a very serious student, not in Syria, and not in high school here. His teachers liked him. He did the work and got passing grades in all his classes, but it wasn't his passion.

"You know," she said carefully, "when I was a girl, my mother always told me –"

"To study hard," Tarek finished for her, mimicking his grandmother's thready voice and strong Palestinian accent, "because education will take you anywhere you want to go. I know. She says the same thing to me every time we talk on the phone. The thing is," he said, grinning at her, "I'm already right where I want to be."

And before Mouna could say, _There's something we need to talk about,_ or any of the other awkward introductions she'd been practicing, he gave her a quick, tight hug and then turned away to set the table. Tarek laid out the dishes and meze and bread, and Mouna checked on the chicken maqluba in the oven, and she didn't tell him that she was right where she wanted to be too, or that she was afraid they wouldn't be able to stay.

The letter from the INS came three days ago. Mouna had spent hours on the phone with her friends in Rochester, in Dearborn and Detroit, and Rafik back in Damascus, but she hadn't called Tarek.

_Put it away_, everyone told her. _The government's got enough problems on its hands, they won't go after one little widow and her son. _

Don't say anything.

Don't think about it.

Don't worry.

Mouna couldn't help but worry – she was a mother, after all. But she'd put the letter away in a drawer. She wouldn't tell him about it tonight, she decided, not on his first night back. And tomorrow they were going to Salim and Denise's place for Iftar, so that wouldn't be a good time either… But there was time – Tarek wouldn't be leaving again for another two weeks. And besides, even if the INS really did intend to go after them, they wouldn't do it at the holidays. They'd be safe for a little while, anyway.

Maybe twenty years from now they'd be on the other side of the world again, in a life neither of them could yet imagine, and maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Life in Michigan wasn't, not with food on the table and Tarek smiling his biggest bright smile. Life was as good as it could be.


End file.
